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CAR killings amount to “ethnic cleansing,” says Amnesty

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch warn the Central African Republic crisis is a “tragedy of historic proportions.”

A picture made available the Amnesty International shows young Jovachi Mongonou with both legs amputated following clashes in the Central African Republic. Amnesty said Wednesday that the violence, much directed at Muslims, amounts to "ethnic cleansing." (AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL / EPA)

And a “humanitarian catastrophe of unspeakable proportions” is how the chair of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees described the situation facing the nearly 2.5 million people forced to live in makeshift camps or ghettos, afraid to go home.

These dire predictions for the impoverished landlocked nation set the background for Wednesday night’s “take note” debate about the Central African Republic in the House of Commons.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird had issued a statement urging all parties to “exercise restraint to end the cycle of violence,” remarking that Canada had contributed $6.95 million last year for humanitarian aid.

Although the Central African Republic has suffered years of instability, the current crisis began a year ago after the Seleka, a coalition of most Muslim rebels, ousted then-president François Bozize.

In the months that followed, Seleka fighters suppressed the country’s majority Christian population with widespread rape, torture, extrajudicial killings, giving rise to Christian vigilantism. In December, more than 1,000 men, women and children were killed in fighting between the Seleka and the Christian militias, known as anti-balaka (which translates as “anti-machete”).

Reuters reported Wednesday that African Union forces had found a mass grave at a military camp in the capital, Bangui, occupied by Seleka rebels.

International pressure helped push the Seleka from power, and the appointment last month of Catherine Samba-Panza as interim president was widely hailed as good news for the country as it tries to reconcile and move toward a 2015 election.

But human rights groups warn that a coalition of African Union and French forces now in the country are unable to stop the vengeful violence against Muslim civilians, some of whom are being slaughtered as they try to flee to neighbouring countries. There are about 1,600 French troops and 6,000 members of the AU forces in a peacekeeping mission known as MISCA.

Despite the battle lines currently drawn between Muslims and Christians, the Central African Republic was not a country divided by religion; nor is the fighting motivated by religion. International Crisis Group analyst Thibaud Lesueur described this as a “community divide,” with religion becoming the “way of defining yourself with one of the communities.”

Kyle Matthews, senior deputy director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, has lamented that the international community, including Canada, has failed to treat the crisis with greater urgency.

The warnings Wednesday by the human rights groups of “ethnic cleansing” follow earlier warnings by UN and French officials that a genocide looms, and these descriptions matter, said Matthews.

“It matters first and foremost because all countries agreed to uphold the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle in 2005,” he said.

R2P, a Canadian-backed doctrine established in the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, established a framework for protecting civilians in the face of genocide, ethnic cleansing or war crimes. It was invoked for the first time two years ago in Libya.

But beyond international commitments, Matthews is also worried the current persecution of Muslims could pull African jihadists, such as those fighting for Boko Haram in Nigeria, into the fray.

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